This might not be what some people want to read, but Chris Berman is thrilled to be the voice of the U.S. Open for ESPN. And ESPN and the USGA are thrilled to have him.

“It's an event that I love,” Berman said. “I really look forward to this. It's a treat that we have it.”

Some of Berman's critics – and I have been one – might term it a cruel trick rather than a tantalizing treat. If they hear one more nickname or fake Scottish “Monty,” they might throw a Footjoy through their plasma screen.

With the Open coming to Torrey Pines next week, Berman agreed to a phone interview yesterday. We talked about his passion for the Open – which he has been covering since 1986, including the last five years as the play-by-play voice on Thursday and Friday – but also the criticism and why he believes it's unjust.

“First of all,” he said, “it's unfair because if you're on the air for six hours and heaven forbid I say, 'Ground control to David Toms,' you're writing it like I said it 500 times. Not the case.”

Perhaps the biggest criticism I hear about Berman is that he puts himself above the event he's broadcasting. When Maxim recently named him No. 1 on its list of the 10 worst broadcasters in sports, author Will Leitch – who founded Deadspin.com – wrote that Berman “never fails to shoehorn his trademark nonsense into a game.”

Said Berman: “It's unfair if people say I'm trying to make it my show. Then you haven't paid attention. Then you haven't done me fair. 'Cause I'm not. But I'm trying to be me and have a good time with it as someone who's an avid follower of the game; someone who's like most of the audience who are watching, a 16-handicap give or take, not a 3 (handicap) or a scratch.

“I would think that's someone loaded for bear before I even come out of the woods, and I can't help that. . . . You should deliver your columns or your sportscasts in the way that you are. And so that's the way I am. So is it going to please everybody? No. I'm not doing the final round, either. You've got to remember that. I'm doing the early rounds.

“It's the only way I know how to do it. There's a lot of ways to announce it; I'm just being me. I'm not trying to overdo it at all. If anyone thinks I come in to overdo it, you're not being fair and you're not listening.”

John Skipper, ESPN executive VP of content and a supporter of Berman's, said Berman “is aware of a balance about being himself and the event. But part of what you want on the event is Chris Berman.”

Asked if anyone had requested he tone it down, Berman said absolutely not.

“They would be doing the public a disservice, because there are other people who are not Chris Berman to do it,” he said. “I'm not saying I'm better than anyone else. I'm just different. What do I need to tone down for?

“If you listen to the six hours and are fair, you wouldn't write what you've written. You'd say, 'Boy, this guy did his homework.' The history of it is intriguing to me. The players, many of whom I know personally, and the caddies. I go out and I play the course. I'm just having a good time.

“I don't know that any toning down . . . I think you're not looking at it fairly, is what I'm trying to tell you. It's six hours. 'I can't believe he said that.' Well, there was a sentence in that one hour, OK? If it's a 3-minute sportscast and you have eight of those, boy, I'd be the first to say, 'What are you doing? Give me the info.'

“But if you have eight of those in a three-hour span, that's not very much. That's just adding a little salt. That's just the way I approach it. But it's not for everyone. I get it.”

One reason for the increased criticism of Berman in recent years could be that fans have been watching him for nearly three decades. He was a fresh face when he started at ESPN in late 1979, but as even he said, “How many back-back-backs can we hear?”

Still, he added, “You can't fault me. I've been doing it for 28½ years, but maybe this guy heard it for the first time. I view myself as not a rock star, but if you go to see Rod Stewart, at some point you want to hear him sing 'Maggie May.' You don't want to hear him sing 'Maggie May' 50 times. But I owe it to the audience to sing 'Maggie May.'

“I still put a smile on people's faces. I'll never be Willie Mays falling down in center field. I'll know way before anybody else that it's time to go. So, sure, there's going to be shots like 'Yeah, we've heard it,' but what do you expect? What do you want? You want somebody else, then get somebody else.”

Don't look for ESPN to do that, particularly when it comes to the Open.

“The U.S. Open guys love him on it,” Skipper said (a USGA spokesman confirmed that). “They position themselves as the people's golf tournament and Chris is the personification of that. . . . He's knowledgeable and passionate. For us it's a no-brainer (to use him).”

More golf

HBO tonight will offer a special outdoor screening of its first golf documentary, “Back Nine at Cherry Hills,” at Ellen Browning Scripps Park in La Jolla. The one-hour film, which looks at the 1960 Open, will begin at sundown. The premiere on HBO will be at 10 p.m. Wednesday.

Berman said he played Torrey Pines a few weeks ago from the white tees and “it was demoralizing.” He joked that “if I had aced the (par-5) 18th – and I tried to skim one from the tee off the pond – I could have broken 100.”

Berman, on the early pairing of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson: “That's like Frazier and Ali sparring the week before the 'Thrilla in Manila.' That's wild.”

Berman said he doesn't read blogs because “I really am an Internet idiot. . . . Look, criticism's been around since, I don't know, Julius Caesar. If they had blogs then, they would have been all over those guys.”